Edifice: your interactive mobile guide to London’s architecture.

This app gives urban explorers the opportunity to abandon cumbersome and often pricey guidebooks in favor of a smart device that is always on hand, always oriented to the current location, and filled with colorful images as well as embedded links. With over 700,000 apps on the Apple Store, it was hard to believe there weren't several well-developed, GPS-enabled architectural guides to famous cities of the world. In hopes of tackling this gap in technology and expanding the audience for architecture, Edifice: London was born. Developed by trained architectural historians, Edifice: London enables more people to engage knowledgeably with London’s built environment and feel greater involvement in this unique city’s development.
© Sandy McCreery / Near Pixel Ltd

EXPLORE

The app features nearly 300 of London’s key architectural sites ranging from the city’s Roman footprint to its newest structures, such as The Shard. The app aims to enrich the daily commute or weekend excursions of London’s urban dwellers by turning a walk or bus ride into a series of rich lessons about the city and its inhabitants, from the Tudors to tenement dwellers to telecom corporations.

LEARN

Each of the richly illustrated entries in the app are geo-referenced and allow users to search buildings by ‘nearest’, architect, and period.

LOCATE

Edifice: London covers the historic core of the metropolis, the area that was traversable by foot, horse, or water before the railways enabled the city to rapidly expand.